Juicy Vatican secrets are getting harder to keep, even under Pope Francis

Even for a place accustomed to leaks, this week produced a torrent, including surreptitiously made recordings of Pope Francis - a barrier Vatican-watchers said had never been crossed before. For an institution long accustomed to some standard of deference, one thing is becoming clear: the Catholic Church is in a new era.

Vatican officials obviously want to deter the kind of extensive leaks that fuelled Emiliano Fittipaldi's Avarizia (Avarice) and Gianluigi Nuzzi's Merchants in the Temple scandal books, both making headlines this week. On Monday they announced they had arrested two insiders on suspicion of leaking. One was a Vatican bureaucrat and monsignor; the other an Italian PR expert called "the Pope's lobbyist".